


cor aut mors

by darkmagicalgirl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Mentions of Canonical Character Death, Not Epilogue Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 18:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9084976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkmagicalgirl/pseuds/darkmagicalgirl
Summary: Ginny was born without a bondmark.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ackermanx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ackermanx/gifts).



> Happy New Year, Junebug!!!!

Ginny grows up surrounded by bondmarks. 

There are her parents, of course, who have a long weasel that sleeps around her mother's shoulders, disappearing under her robes, or else accompanies her father to work along the underside on his arm. Bill has a compass that appears like clockwork every other morning at the nape of his neck and Charlie a coiled dragon round his bicep that spends most of it's time with him. The twins have a shared tornado that whips between their skin with furiously familiar energy. Percy doesn't like to talk about his since it only rarely appears on him, but Ginny knows it's a swamp plant of some kind that like to settle along the side of his ribs. Ron has a line of chess pieces that march down the back of his spine, knights and castles in an orderly column.

Ginny hasn't got a bondmark at all. 

It's not exactly unusual. A lot of wizards who should have lived didn’t make it through the war, leaving half of their bond empty. If the bondmark was on the surviving soulmate, it turns still and dead under their skin. Ginny is just the opposite case, someone whose soulmate died while they were the one with the mark, leaving her skin blank. They probably were a few years older than her, to have died in the war, possibly a child of muggleborn wizards or just from a family who'd earned You-Know-Who's wrath. Maybe so much as a tenth of wizards now have no soulmate, not that it’s much comfort.

"These types of situations have come up before," Molly tells her often, stroking her hair. "At other times when there were a lot of wizards and witches dying young. There will be plenty of people out there who don't have a soulmate still with them, either, so you don't need to worry about being alone."

"I know it seems from the books and the stories that without a soulmate you can’t be happy,” Arthur says. "But it's not that way at all. Muggles get along fine without bondmarks at all, right? And they're perfectly happy."

"And once more people have settled their bonds, you won't stand out," Molly says. "You're exactly the same as all your siblings to us." She pinches Ginny's cheek.

"Right," Ginny says, and tries to put it out of her mind.

—

It's hard to do at Hogwarts, though. So many people discover their soulmate their first year in Hogwarts, when they see a familiar shape running along someone else's skin. It surrounds her, pairs matching up of all sorts. Best friends, mentor and student, those who might later fall in love... The professors mostly have settled bonds and so can't see any marks except their own, but they observe the proceedings with benign amusement, letting the students excitement flow.

 _That's awful_ , Tom writes to her when she confesses how lonely she is. _You're a wonderful girl, you deserve a soulmate like everyone else._

 _Do you have one?_ Ginny writes back. _Or... did you? Back when you were alive?_

 _I did_ , Tom tells her. _But I guess I died before we found each other. I don't know what happened to them, either._

 _Then we're alike_ , Ginny says and smiles down at the page. _You and me._

 _Yes_ , her diary writes back. _We're the same, you and I._

—

"What's your bondmark?" It's a common question to start out a relationship, a way to ward off the awkwardness of it taking forever to realize that two people matched up if their marks tend to stay in hidden areas. Ginny has seen that firsthand with Ron and Hermione; she's not sure even they’ve realized their marks match yet. She'd only seen the chest set on Hermione when she’d had stayed in her room over the summer, and there was no way Ginny was wading into that one. They'd figure it out on their own.

"I'm a no mark," she had gotten used to saying and people would nod, wince a little at the awkwardness. Other no marks and frozen marks would draw close to each other, like they could replace the relationships lost. 

She doesn't want to open up about anything more than that, not after the diary.

—

"It's a secret," Luna Lovegood announces to the group with a wink. Professor Lupin had stepped out for a whispered conversation with Professor Snape, leaving the students to talk. Ginny wishes they'd stayed a bit closer, since both of them seemed to have bondmarks as a sore spot, shutting down discussion on it when it came up with varying gentleness.

"That's not a very good way to find someone," Sylvester Nilton says with a scoff. "How're they supposed to know who you are, then?"

"They'll know it when they see it," Luna says with a beatific smile, twirling her wand in her hands.

"But no one's even seen yours," Nilton argues. "That only works if yours is somewhere obvious."

"Oh, I'm not worried about that," Luna says, smile never wavering.

"You really are loony. Loony Lovegood, how 'bout that?" Nilton says and grins at the laughter it got from the other students.

Ginny, who had been trying to ignore the conversation, just ducks her head over her notes. She's just glad nobody was paying attention to her, and doing her best to ignore the bit well-nursed jealousy of anyone, even Loony Lovegood, being able to be so sure.

—

"You're a no mark, right?" Michael Corner asks and pulls up the sleeve of his robe to show the frozen still image of a mouse sleeping in the crook of his elbow. "Wanna go out?"

Ginny twists her hair between her fingers, considering. "Sure," she says with a shrug. "Why not?"

—

"You shouldn't feel badly about not having a mark," Percy tells her in that pompous way of his that makes her seem approximately five years old. "Plenty of people don't, after all. Actually, the whole system is poorly understood, outdated, really. Not at all something that's your fault."

"I _know_ ," Ginny says for what feels like the hundredth time, irritation coloring her voice.

Percy frowns his most pigheaded, disappointed frown, and Ginny wants to _scream_. "I'm only trying to make you feel better. There's no call to be—"

"I don't want advice from the person who's pretending he still doesn't know who his soulmate is, thanks," Ginny says cruelly. "Or are you forgetting I've heard the stories about the Quidditch locker rooms, too? Does _precious Penny_ know or are you still pretending to her like you have no idea? Says a bit more about what you think of bondmarks than all your hot air, doesn't it?"

Percy doesn't talk to her for the rest of summer hols.

—

Cho is the first person Ginny sees who goes from having an active mark to no mark at all. Everyone tiptoes around her for the entire year, unsure how to deal with this change. There’s no comfort to offer her shaking hands or red-rimmed eyes, nothing to say that would make the now forever blank skin along her throat where there used to be a forest any less empty.

Harry, on the other hand, is the first person anyone sees who goes from having a frozen mark to an active one, lightning flashing over his forehead.

"It probably was like that all along," the students whisper. "I mean, can anyone prove it was actually frozen before? Maybe it was just not very active and their relationship changed. There are plenty of people with lightning marks. It doesn't mean anything.

"Don't be a fucking idiot," Ginny tells anyone that will listen. "You've been staring at his forehead for years now. Have you ever seen it move before?"

Not that many people will listen.

"Maybe it means he's just like him," Zacharias Smith says, possibly just to get a rise out of them. It's hard to tell, with him. "I mean, if he's telling the truth, and they're really soulmates, what does that say about _him_?”

“ _Maybe_ it says he's our best hope," Ginny says. "So _maybe_ you should consider shutting up about it."

—

Even the D.A. talks about bondmarks. They can hardly avoid it, with Cho and Harry there. Ginny ignores most of the discussion, tries to change the topic, and she thinks she's doing a good job hiding her discomfort until Neville asks her to help him with an errand when it comes up midyear.

"Not that I mind the help," Neville says. They're taking some treats down to the Thestrals, since Luna is in the hospital wing with the flu and is apparently worried that they'll be sad without someone visiting them. "But you seemed like you'd rather be anywhere else in the world, even the Forbidden Forest, than talk about all that."

"Yeah," Ginny says, and looks down at her feet. "It's just..."

"You don't have to explain to me," Neville says with a lopsided smile. "It's fine to think it should be more personal. It's awkward expecting people to work out their private lives in front of everyone, like that."

Ginny thinks of Ron and Hermione and shudders. "Merlin, you don't need to tell me," she says and almost runs into Neville when he stops. "Oh, are they here already?"

Neville looks at her in shock for a moment and then shakes his head with a smile. "I always forget you can't see them," he says by way of explanation. "Yeah, the herds all here."

"Luna sends her love," Ginny tells the empty space around them. "She misses you lot loads when she can't come by. Um, I'm Ginny. We met before once, I guess. Oh!" It's a strange sensation, being brushed by something she can't see, and stranger still when she tries to imagine the monstrous illustrations she's seen being the thing nuzzling her wrist so gently. "Hello," she says. "It's nice to see you again, too. Or not see, I guess. What?" she asks Neville, who has been watching her with a strange expression.

"Just thinking," he says. "You know, I used to think Luna was barmy for liking these guys. I was terrified of 'em, when I first got to Hogwarts. Gave me nightmares."

"I can imagine," Ginny says. "From the pictures I've seen..."

"But they aren't so bad, not when you get to know them," Neville says. "They're just different, and maybe a bit lonely. No wonder Luna likes them."

"You think she's lonely?" Ginny asks.

"I don't know," Neville says. "But I would be I were her, wouldn't you?"

—

Harry doesn't really believe Sirius is gone until the Order has gathered together again and they see Remus's frozen mark. Before then he could cling to disbelief, but there’s no way to argue with that inescapable stillness. Ginny can see the exact moment the last bit of hope leaves his eyes, the last crush of defeat settle it.

It's awful.

"I don't know what to say to him," Ginny says softly to Luna, who's sitting nearest her. She tries to sit close to Luna now, after her talk with Neville. She's surprised at how easy it is to make Luna smile, just by being near her. It's a strange power to have over someone, she finds, to be able to make them happy just by being close.

Not that this day is a good example of that.

"I don't think there's anything to say," Luna says, looping her arms around her thin knees, pulling them up to her chest. "Sometimes, you just have to let it hurt. When my mother died... we just had to let the pain stay, for a while."

Ginny looks around at the people around them, the resignation on the faces of the adults, the heartbreak on those of the kids. "This is just the beginning, isn't it?" she says, more to herself than to Luna. "It's just going to be more and more of this, of people dying, of people losing each other." Maybe she's lucky, she thinks, to have never had a soulmate at all. At least this way, she doesn't have to fear losing them.

Luna doesn't say anything, but she grabs Ginny's hand, her bitten off fingernails dragging against Ginny's skin lightly as she twines their hands together.

—

"They just don't make sense together," Molly says for probably the hundredth time. She turns to Ginny and her eyes go big. "Not because they aren’t each other’s soulmates,” she adds hurriedly. "Just because—"

"Because she's _Phlegm_ ,” Ginny says, and Molly's expression relaxes in relief.

—

"It doesn't... scare you?" Harry asks as Ginny brushes her fingers over the scarred patch of his forehead where lightning usually flickers. "Knowing that right now it's off somewhere, on _him_.”

Ginny thinks about it. "It doesn't make me scared _of_ you," she says finally. "It makes me scared _for_ you, sometimes. But it's not like we didn't know your two fates were bonded together, with or without the mark."

Harry's mouth turns down slightly at the edges, but he relaxes against her. "Sometimes I wonder what kind of mark I'd have had, if he hadn't come after me. Would I have gotten Neville's, d'you reckon?"

Ginny laughs. "I don't think it works that way," she says. "But I understand about... wondering."

"You wish things were different?" Harry asks with a frown, leaning forward to graze his fingers against the side of her wrist, a spot on her he seems to favor. "With your bond, I mean. You always seem like you're getting along okay, even with everything going on."

"I've had time to come to terms with it," Ginny says. "I mean, I've had my whole life with it like this, and there's plenty of people in the same boat, after all, but it's still... It's hard to know there could have been something else waiting for me, but instead it's just... this."

Harry sighs. "I didn't know it was that common," he says, resignation heavy on his tone as if it’s his fault Ginny doesn’t have a bondmark. "Does it mean anything?"

"Just another thing to thank You-Know-Who for," Ginny says. "All the death, you know? Anyway, it doesn't matter. No mark, frozen mark, a mark like that... it doesn't have to decide anything more than you let it."

"I like that," Harry says, and they don't talk much after that.

—

It's not uncommon, during her sixth year, to see people sitting at watching their marks, sending them back and forth to check to see that their other half is still alright. Ginny is reminded of nothing so much as her mother watching the family clock. Selfishly, she wishes she had some way to check on Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Maybe if Hermione had stayed, she could at least have known Ron was still alright by checking her skin.

She spends most of her time with Neville and Luna, and then just Neville when Luna goes missing. Thinking of Harry out there somewhere fills her with fear, but thinking of Luna in the clutches of the Death Eaters is a different kind of terror and anger. Bright, gentle Luna with her strange eyes and grin, all by herself... if she's even still alive.

"She's okay," Neville promises her as he squeezes her wrist. "I'm sure of it."

"How can you be _sure_?" she asks, voice cracking.

"I just am," Neville says in a voice that Ginny recognizes as someone who wishes they could tell her a secret but cannot. "Trust me, alright?"

—

In the silence after the final battle, Ginny finds Harry standing by a window, looking out over the Hogwarts grounds. His mark is gone, truly gone this time, leaving only the scarred skin behind.

"What are you going to do now?" Ginny asks, not half sure herself what answer she's hoping for. She'd thought she'd known war, known death, by the end of fifth year, but now she feels like a completely different person than the one who'd kissed Harry goodbye. She’s not sure she can put on that old form like a discarded robe, step back in those shoes and try to recreate a dance she’d only been able to halfway try out before.

"I think I need to take time by myself," Harry says. "To find out who I am."

Ginny nods, sadness and relief and guilt all warring for the lump in her throat. She feels like her heart is breaking, but it doesn't hurt as much as she'd expect. There's something healing in it, even when in the ache. "Good luck," she says, and kisses his cheek as she says goodbye.

—

Luna and Neville are in one of their old hiding spots from the last year, an alcove near the Ravenclaw common room. Their heads are ducked together as they talk and Ginny is considering how to interrupt when there's a dark flash across Luna's cheek and Ginny's breath gusts out of her in a shocked rush.

"Oh, _Luna_ ,” she says, stepping forward without thinking about it to push blonde curls out of the way to better see the skeletal winged horse prancing beneath Luna's pale skin. "I never knew you had..."

"It works like an actual Thestral, I've realized," Luna explains, looking at Ginny with tired eyes that still, somehow, find a way to crinkle up into a smile. "You can't see it until you've seen death."

"Oh," Ginny whispers and thinks about Neville being sure Luna was alright, that she can't remember ever seeing Neville's mark, either. She turns to look at him, but he's slid away when she wasn't paying attention, disappearing around a corridor. "Where'd did... Is he your soulmate, then?"

Luna's eyes open wide. "Neville? Of course not," she says. "He's a dear friend, of course, and he's always been able to see my mark, which is quite rare, but he's not my soulmate."

"Oh," Ginny says and blushes, her heart pattering strangely in her chest. "Do you... Do you know who is, then?"

Luna bites her lip. Ginny's not used to seeing her look so nervous, or so hopeful.

"What is it?" she asks, and Luna takes her hand, pushing her robe sleeve back.

Before Ginny's eyes, dark hooves bloom under her wrist.


End file.
